The large hall of the goals seemed to be transformed into a cinema without a screen: a completely darkened room, the stone rear wall of the stage covered with black cloths, even the orchestra played in the half -dark, with occasional flaring light beams in an exciting light play . And were there a striking number of young couples in the audience? Especially for Valentine’s Day, a well -filled room listened to a half -staged milestone from love literature: Richard Wagner’s Sadness Opera Tristan und Isolde.
Heavy cost: a complete version of the opera will soon take about five hours. The Rotterdam Philharmonic limited itself to the second act, the deed with the great love duet. Just with the ‘Vorspiel’ from the first deed in advance; You can’t cut it out with good decency either. In that instrumental overture, Wagner rolls out the musical master plan on which the complete opera is built. With an incredibly harmonious craving, he postponed the musical satisfaction for an entire opera for an extremis.
But because the musical redemption of all that desire is only at the end of the third deed, when Isolde is her Liebestod Dies, the denouement was missing on Friday evening. Only Death in Wagner’s Opera offers a chance of redemption – “the delusionless sweet desire not to wake up again” – but with Valentine that might not be such a pleasant thought.
With an incredibly harmonious craving, Wagner will postpone the musical satisfaction for an entire opera for an extremis
Tension
By only increasing the second act, you in theory send an entire room in the middle of that unfulfilled craving again. In this way it might have been a good thing that the tension in Rotterdam did not completely come to a boiling point. The orchestra was led by the regular guest conductor, the 24-year-old Finnish talent Tarmo Peltokoski. A program that is made for him – ‘Tarmo’s Tristan’ was on the posters. “Wagner is the reason I started conducting,” Peltokoski told two seasons back NRC. Already at the age of 22 he led a performance of Wagner’s full four -part opera in his home country Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Wagner wrote Tristan und Isolde Actually as a distraction between composing that powerful ring cycle. His Tristan had to lie a little less heavy on the stomach and become a well -feasible piece. That was not really successful: the intoxicating tension that Wagner applies are really on the physically unbearable in a strong version. You could become superstitious: two conductors already killed in history while conducting this second deed.
Peltokoski had little trouble with superstition. He stood on the goat soberly wide -legged; He led with almost business battle. The Rotterdam Philharmonic played warm -blooded and sophisticated, although the ‘Vorspiel’ immediately exposed what would miss a bit all evening: the real sizzling of the sultry yearn remained. Especially the string sound could have brew more. Peltokoski’s approach sometimes felt a little calculating; As in the measurement of the rest between the use of the overture. Where the orchestra at Wagner is actually a character in itself, it got a more serving role here.
Effortless
The strong hand of Peltokoski turned out to be at its best in the choice of singers, with five great Wagner adepts as a soloist cast. From his home country, soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä had flown in as very convincing Isolde. Her voice effortlessly filled the difficult acoustics of the goals. She also moved most convincing by the staged light play on stage; With a single look, she managed to evoke a whole mood. Her opponent Andreas Schager sang a strong but somewhat jovial Tristan with a Beate smile on his face. Their voices melt beautifully in the love duet.
Subsulent couples in the audience were waking up at the same time as Isolde and Tristan from that dream of love: at the rise of King Marke – Tristan’s uncle and Isoldes, the fierce room light suddenly flashed. It made the deep bass sound of Stephen Milling all the more impressive. How long can you take to catch your loved one with someone else, you sometimes wonder at Wagner, but Milling kept the tense room on the edge of the chair for minutes. The intensity that Peltokoski received but at times from the orchestra was more than compensated by the singers.